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The Adventure of 20th Welland Scouting on the Canadian Path

Kevin White – August 26, 2016

Section & GroupRovers – 20th Welland

RegionWelland

Twentieth Welland Scouting group restarted Sept 2015 after being closed for 18 years.

When 20th Welland Scouting closed 18 years ago, it was only a Beaver Colony sponsored by the Welland Optimists. Today that same group of Optimist sponsor us again. Many of the members of the Optimists are former members of Scouts Canada. They were more than excited to once again sponsor us.

Today the group is small but we are operating a Venture Company and a Rover Crew and growing. Being a small group and a group with no existing equipment has caused some problems, but has made the youth more determined to succeed. They have worked hard to get the basic gear to make the year very successful.

It has become very interesting to watch the youth make decisions that not only affect themselves on the development of the group and their adventurers on the Canadian path, but will also have effect on the youth that follow them in future years.

Our youth have had the fun of selecting an official group necker. The Beaver colony did not have an official group necker. They also had the opportunity to design their own group crest.
The Venture’s and Rovers have become very active within the community. While participating in the Scouts good turn week they worked with the Niagara Region Children’s Safety Village and have been asked to come back in the fall to help them get ready for the winter and back again in the spring to help them get ready for a busy spring and summer. They have also started working with MS Society with the Welland MS walk committee, setting up and tearing down the walk route. Our Sponsor likes having us around as most of the members are getting older. The youth are helping them with events the Welland Optimist hold in order to raise funds to help support the youth organizations the make donations to in Welland. After all their slogan is “Friends of the Youth” Our Venture and Rovers also are becoming active with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority planting and helping with other events coming up in October 2016.

During the Scout Guide week our Down Town Business Improvement Association in conjunction with Niagara Region Government adjusted the colour of the LED lights to match our group Colours on Welland historic Bridge #13 over the old retired section of the Welland Canal. Picture’s were taken that became the basis of their group crest. We also participated in the put a necker on it campaign putting a necker on our newly elected member of the federal government. At the time we didn’t have necker yet so we made use of the red national neckers. Our member of parliament liked the red ones we used as he was a Liberal Candidate.

A new company recently moved into town and built a new seniors retirement village. They want us to make monthly visits to the residents and they want to become a community supporter of our growing process.

Camping has been fun, exciting and at times very interesting watching the youth over come all the obstacles that have been put in front of them. They just completed an 8 day volunteer stint at the Great Lakes Jamboree were they have all been asked to come back in two years.

Give them a chance to make decision and they will pick a path that works for them and have lots of fun doing it. All the challenges have helped them grow and look forward to the next challenge.
All in all it was a very fulfilling experience being able to help out our community and do something that other people will be able to benefit from, not only now, but in the future as well.

We found out later that a benefit of the change was the youth were having fun but they were also exercising.

This was a development of a long term working friendship between the Safety Village and our group.